CHAPTER 740: PRIME-STEP TO DAYLIGHT (1)

Steam hung low like a thin curtain. It caught the glow from Rodion’s board and folded it back into the bone, making a small private room around the team. The Ascensorium Heart settled under them with a new, steady hum—like a careful chest that had learned how to breathe without complaint. On the board, green safe-dots blinked like calm fireflies. Modest orange shaded the no-arc zones. At the bottom a crooked breath ribbon rose and fell, refusing to be a song.

Whole-floor overlay steady. Safe-dots confirmed. Breath ribbon: crooked by design. Please refrain from "improving" it, Mikhailis.

Mikhailis lifted an eyebrow at the board. "I only fix things that ask nicely."

A few soldiers smiled without showing teeth. The nurse captain’s shoulders loosened by a thumb’s width. The small sounds—leather settling, buckles easing, a quiet throat being cleared—folded into the steam and did not echo.

Thalatha stood straight, shoulders low, eyes scanning the ribs and vents. Her gaze did a full sweep—left arch, floor seam, vent lip, then back to the faces. She didn’t count them out loud, but you could feel the numbers touching down in her head like boots on good stone. Her voice was soft, but it filled the little space as if the room had been built for that tone.

"We keep it quiet. Roll call after the lurch."

The floor gave a small tilt, the kind that makes coins think about rolling. A few packs shifted. Someone’s carapace plate ticked against a clip and then stilled.

Mikhailis and Thalatha bumped shoulders, then forearms. A clink of buckles. A shared breath. His palm stayed on her elbow half a second longer than duty required. He felt the solid warmth under the leather, the way her balance re-found itself and then chose not to pull away. She did not move. Not yet. A smile almost happened and changed its mind, hiding at the corner of her mouth like a shy animal.

He cleared his throat and counted in that neat cadence everyone now trusted. The numbers did not rush; they arrived and sat where they belonged.

"Workers two hundred twenty. Soldiers one hundred twenty. Nurses forty. Wardens and artisans twenty. Total about four hundred." His hand made a small circle that included the variants. "Variants all green: Scurabons, Slimeweave, Hypnoveil, Crymber pair."

He tipped two fingers toward their strange allies at the edge of the steam. "Hound, check. Sentinel, check. Gate Warden holding station. Choir Wights posted. Moths sleepy in net."

A soldier in the back exhaled like he had been holding that list in his teeth. A nurse tapped his wrist twice with a small smile—remember to breathe—and he rolled his eyes at himself and smiled back.

The queen-to-be came forward on small, sure feet. She carried herself with that new, careful pride—like a lamp that had decided to be a lighthouse but was still learning the shoreline. She sketched a rota in resin dust with a tidy foreleg—three on, two off, one hovering at the tight turn. Her strokes were short and clean. She paused after each mark, antennae tasting for approval, not from fear, but from respect for the pattern.

The nurse council leaned in, read it, and their antennae made a quick chord of approval—a ripple that moved through them like wind in grass. One nurse traced a tiny addendum near the tightest corner: a loop for juveniles to swap loads without opening a gap. The queen-to-be watched, considered, then pressed a dot there herself. A shared decision. A small, good thing.

Thalatha spoke the law like an amulet, each line a bead she had polished many times. The words were simple, not pretty, and that was why they kept people living.

"Food before orders. No living puppets. Backs shown at brood mouths. Prime-step only. One yawn pebble per five breaths."

The crew murmured the last rule with her—quiet, almost like a prayer. The new soldiers mouthed it without sound. The old hands didn’t mouth it at all; they wore it in their knees and ankles.

"Copy," Mikhailis said. He stepped closer, saw a twist in her shoulder strap, and reached to reloop it. He did it the way he always did careful things—two fingers, no fuss, no tug. She caught his wrist to steady the buckle. Domestic. Precise. Her glove was warm. Their breath moved the same little patch of air for a second longer than it should. He let go first, because that was the rule he had made for himself since the slot: keep it gentle.

You are not a fire. You are a house light. Be useful.

"On the exhale," Thalatha said.

They watched the crooked ribbon dip and rise. The team moved when the line said exhale, not before. Boots lifted. Weight passed from one foot to the other like a secret. The small private room opened into bones and corridors, and the work began again.

The archive ramp waited with whisper-plates that tried to learn footsteps. On the inhale they held their breath; on the exhale they sighed tiny syllables, hoping for echo. The plates were not evil. They were just greedy students. They wanted a pattern to write down and punish later.

Nurses moved through the ranks, tapping prime counts on shoulders—two, three, five—like a quiet song only the body could hear. The taps were not on skin; they were on rhythm, on habit, on a thousand small choices.

Two juniors fell into mirror steps by accident. Their boots matched heel for heel, almost proud of being neat. The nurse beside them bumped antennae to elbow—ant language for break it now. One junior added a small heel drag, the other took a half pause. The plates listened, tried to make a word, and failed. They sighed in a confused way and went quiet.

Mikhailis watched the culture move. This is what saving looks like. Not heroics. Habits. Quiet corrections. People teaching rooms to be kind by example.

A soldier near the front adjusted his pack. The strap creaked and the sound wanted to be a beat. He stopped moving for a whole breath, then took a step at the wrong time on purpose. The would-be beat died with dignity. The soldier shrugged to himself. The nurse behind him tapped his shoulder once—good catch—and they kept going.

The ramp emptied onto a catwalk over still water, flat like a piece of glass. The water did not smell like much, only cold and old, but it made the air feel heavier in the nose. Lurker jars above woke and tried a trick: small suns lighting up, asking for attention like actors who had forgotten their lines and hoped you would still clap.

Hypnoveil let its mantle droop and the world went dull around the edges. It wasn’t darkness; it was indifference. The glow had nowhere to stick. The room remembered boring and sat down.

Workers stepped by with resin and smeared thin lines on visor slits and on the brightest glass shoulders. They worked fast, but the movements were neat, like cooks plating a dish the same way for the hundredth time and still caring. Nets rose and kissed the jars. Moths settled and drank the shine like tired aunties taking care of a rude lantern. One moth bumped its wing on Mikhailis’s cuff and left a soft powder. He brushed it away with a finger and smiled at the tiny mark it didn’t leave.

A sway in the catwalk pushed Thalatha into Mikhailis. It wasn’t much, just enough to move bodies a hand’s width. He caught her by reflex, one hand at the elbow, the other at the strap he had just fixed. The strap was firm now; he felt his own earlier work and almost laughed.

She steadied his wrist again, breath close. He could smell mint from the paper in his pocket and the iron of old dust. Their helmets almost touched. Two quiet breaths, then they separated like professionals. Cheeks a little warm. A soldier behind them looked away at once, the practiced courtesy of not seeing what should be private. The catwalk stopped pretending to be dramatic.

"Thank you,"